CronoDAS comments on Negative and Positive Selection - Less Wrong

71 Post author: alyssavance 06 July 2012 01:34AM

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Comment author: CronoDAS 06 July 2012 02:56:48AM 0 points [-]

Elite college admissions is an example of a negative selection test. There’s no one way you can do really, really well, and thereby be admitted to Harvard.

I suspect that "being rich enough to make a sufficiently large donation" will get you in (as long as you've got a high school diploma or GED). "Sufficiently large" may run in the hundreds of millions of dollars, though.

Comment author: Vaniver 06 July 2012 03:44:44AM 0 points [-]

Rumor has it that it takes $5M to get accepted off the waitlist. If you don't get waitlisted... I'm sure that something can be arranged, but think your expectation is probably a reasonable estimate.

Comment author: CronoDAS 06 July 2012 04:20:38AM *  2 points [-]

I was thinking of the scene in the Rodney Dangerfield movie "Back to School" in which Rodney Dangerfield's character, who became a wealthy businessman despite lacking a high school diploma, tries to enroll in the college in which his son is about to drop out of.

Wikipedia's description of the scene in question:

Possessing neither a high school diploma nor any transcripts or SAT scores, Thornton’s efforts seem to be stalled. But when the university's "Dean" Martin -– a play on Dean Martin -– asks how he can possibly admit an unqualified student, the next scene cuts to a groundbreaking of the university's new Thornton Melon School of Business.

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